Playing With Mistakes Internet Music Video!

 

Being Real

Fake Internet and Instagram guitarists is a recent noise in the Social Media Swamp. People mime playing to a perfect backing track.  Some get caught doing it, one recent Italian guitarist, GIACOMO TURRA,  got found out other ways.

This video isn't like that!  Mistakes and all!   This came up in Mattias's FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND too, where live with your mistakes , they will lead to something interesting, and was better than being fake.

I have been Finger Drumming for some 5 weeks now, so still a beginner. Made huge progress in the first 2 weeks practicing for 10 minutes a few times each day, but still can't do much with my left hand.  Finger Drumming is really hard, and expect many of the videos I have seen on it are faked, or edited together and refined in same way. 

In my video here I made mistakes in my production method, which then made syncing the different parts together, and then finding it all so tedious I didn't bother to get "the perfect take" before doing the next part, which compounded the timing issues.  

This was my first attempt at doing 3 video files all synced to the same final sound file as an  experiment, so "perfect" and releasing it wasn't my original goal.  This is the kind of thing music Vbloggers seem to do all the time, but I think they have more sophisticated video gear to help in the process.  Not just a bottom of the range Android phone. Many fake parts of it too though.

I just used my phones front video camera and recorded the instrument outputs into Reaper, so I could mix the parts together, and sync that with the appropriate takes.

But having to press camera start and Reaper start and stop multiple times is tedious and seems to increase the chance of making a playing mistake somewhere MUCH higher.  Just more things to think about and overload the old wet cpu...

What the camera recorded for the Finger Drumming take is:

What I realize now, of course, is that I should have had my studio monitors on, so there was a sound I could see to sync the final mix too.  Using just the images at 30fps is rather hit and miss in my Vegas Movie Studio Editor.

So all 3 videos have stereo sound that I mute, except for my talking at the start of the drum clip. In each of the videos, it was only the last take I needed, and syncing that up to the final sound visually is just not the way to do it! All tracks were played live, mistakes and all, but the sync is off, so it kind of all looks fake anyway. 

I recorded the drums first, just the sound out of the Yamaha FGDP-30 METAL kit. I then used that as the reference and recorded the 2 guitar parts. The rhythm guitar is out of time for bits, but it is what it is and just adlibbed at the time, and the last take I could be bothered doing.

The mixed Audio from Reaper was then brought back into Movie Studio and I synced them up, until I couldn't be bother futzing around any more. 

Interruptions from the cat, and others, didn't help the calm state of mind I needed. 

It would have looked better if I had mimed the guitar playing to a perfect music track, but that isn't what this was all about.

I started Finger Drumming with an Akai MPD218, but have found the Yamaha FGDP-30 to be so much more sensitive and playable. It is also the best thing to pick up for 5 minutes and practice throughout the day.  Your practicing before your PC based DAW has even loaded.

YouTuber Style

So YouTubers/Instragramers all edit their videos to be perfect right?  So to be one of those, I have made some small changes here to make the guitar parts fit better with the sloppy finger drumming.  I didn't change the finger drumming, just moved the guitar parts to fit better. So the video is now not just as was played. Not sure if you would call it faked though.

So first the rhythm guitar part was moved a little earlier to fit the drums in Reaper. Then the Lead later bit was delayed for the same reason. As can see in the video editor here:

It meant a few frames at the end of the Lead Guitar Part split had to be repeated to fill the gap. That is completely invisible to me. It just made a pause a smidgen longer.

The Rhythm Guitar was advanced a little and that is invisible too.

 And we have put a trimmed version on Bandcamp, with the Bullwinkle reference:

And this more refined as a Music Video THIS TIME FOR SURE:

That should be the end of that!  On to something else...

YouTube shows me a Rhett Shull video recently, where  he identified with being "a maker", and getting inspiration from Adam Savage's book, Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It . 

I wouldn't have expected that, as I kind of thought of him as more of a Country Music Guitarist, which probably isn't fair at all.  But Adam also takes that to mean it is completely fine to dive into your obsessions . 

I consider myself  "a maker", to use that rather recent term.  That people also now mean it to including making anything you are passionate about is fine by me too.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology